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Friday, 17 February 2017

It's always a fantastic occasion to get together with other moto bloggers and this time it was with well-known Aussie blogger Steve Hoswell (Chillertek of Road to Nowhere fame). Steve flew into NZ last night with his mates Stuart, Geoff and Rick to start a tour of NZ's North Island.

Mind you, it didn't get off to a good start with them landing in torrential rain which continued through to this morning. The irony is that we haven't had any appreciable rain since Christmas and were verging on a serious drought - thought that we must have displeased the motorcycling gods in some way! A scan of road conditions in the province showed local surface flooding but looking at rain radar on the Metservice website showed a clearance from the north so it was all on!

Steve and co were keen to ride the famous Coromandel Loop en route to their overnight stop in Rotorua and it would have been rude not to escort them up the west coast section of the Loop and give them lunch, wouldn't it? So, in drying conditions and temperatures in the mid 20's C, it was off to Thames to meet the guys, all arriving within minutes of each other.

Steve, leading the lads to the meeting spot

Meeting at Thames Yacht Club

Two Yamaha Tracers, a Tiger 800 and a Street Triple, all decked out with touring luggage pulled in and it was a case of instantly getting on with each other. Quick introductions, a bit of banter and then it was an absolute privilege to show them the 55 km of highly technical twisties up to Coromandel village (population 1600 on a good day!)

Manaia Hill lookout, about 15 km south of Coromandel

Arty-farty shot at the Manaia Hill lookout

After a nice brisk ride through the hills, it was round to the Coromandel wharf for an obligatory photo op.

Coromandel wharf with the Coromandel mountain range in the background

Coromandel wharf looking up the harbour

It's only about 800 metres to our house from the wharf and it was round home for a bit of rehydration and to blunt an appetite honed by a morning's riding.

Filling up for the afternoon sprint to Rotorua

Geoff, Stuart, Rick and Steve getting ready to depart

What a great privilege it was to meet and ride with Steve, Geoff, Rick and Stuart, whose past adventures I've enjoyed following for some years on Steve's blog - makes all the difference in the world to have actually met them now. It's sad however that we were only able to spend a couple of hours or so in each other's company. Might have to remedy that at a later date! Travel safely guys, watch those hangovers, have a fantastic tour and look forward to seeing a full account of your tour when you get back to Australia!

Who???

Grumpy old curmudgeon on some occasions, mental age of 5 on others. Retired professional engineer and career in operations and technical management, mainly in the pulp and paper industry. Have been riding since I was 16 and joined the NZ branch of IAM in my 60's. Still young enough to really enjoy life and love motorcycling, fishing, sailing, kayaking and travelling with my soulmate and long-suffering wife Jennie.
Moved to NZ from Northants in the UK in 1975 and have 3 grown up kids whom we're very proud of and love dearly. We also love irritating our kids by doing stuff with the grandkids that they normally wouldn't get permission for!
A cynic and optimist in equal measure, depending on the moon and what day of the week it is. Growing older as disgracefully as possible

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